Then is it the other legal team’s responsibility to point out that it’s bogus and refute the claim that it meant “I stole Jack’s peanuts”. Maybe by giving examples of other assumed ciphers that prove it actually decoded to “I can drink 5 beer cans in 2.5 minutes” or that it also means “Rabbits are actually slow” according to yet another assumed cipher?
How does that work? I mean I know if it’s a jury and then it can just come down to their individual and collective whims and fancy and but how does it work in general?
This one seems pretty cut and dry, frankly, since they’ve asked him to provide the code, and he refused. It sounds like the prosecution erred significantly in making closing arguments about pleading the fifth being indicative of guilty. The more interesting question, which is not involved in this case, is whether a defendant can be compelled to provide unlocked devices to law enforcement.